01 — DROP-IN
Hi angels 🤍
Big one today. This community has a new name.
Welcome to MOODY.
Her whole life, “you’re in a mood” was a warning. Something to apologise for. Something to fix before the meeting. It’s what gets said about us when we’re too direct, too ambitious, too much. We’re keeping it. Yes, we’re in a mood. A founding mood. A raising mood. A corporate mood. A plotting-her-next-move mood. A big mood.
Here’s why now. Last week, London, LA and New York chats went live and filled themselves before I’d even finished writing the welcome messages. Caitlin is leading the charge in London. Cecilia has LA absolutely firing. NYC didn’t wait for an invitation, which is the most NYC thing I’ve ever heard. Hands went up for Zurich and Queenstown before I’d even asked.
And let me be clear about what that means, because it is not “we’re leaving”. Australia is the whole point. Always will be. But Australian women are too ambitious to be an afterthought of the rest of the world, and to reach our ambition, Australia has to be connected to it. In America, serendipity is infrastructure: the right intro at the right dinner, the network that catches you before you fall. We never had that luxury, so we’re building it ourselves. Now the build has time zones.
And while we’re being honest about names: we’ve outgrown the podcast fan chat we started in (where Angels originated), and “Aussie Angels” kept getting us mistaken for the well-known Aussie investing syndicate of the same name. Lovely people. Different thing. Time for a name that’s unmistakably ours.
So, MOODY. Australia’s network for ambitious women, and one house for everything: the community, this newsletter, the Substack, the events, and every room we build next. (If you clocked that the Social Summit code has been MOODY20 for a week, yes. That was the soft launch. Well spotted.
→ Watch the new branding come to life on IG. Huge chookas to Remi, Bella from Ponnd & Georgia from The Content Files for bringing the brand vision to life!!
Before anyone panics: you are still angels. That’s not branding, that’s just what you are. The chats don’t change, the events don’t change, and the point doesn’t change: founders, operators, corporates and creatives ending up in the same group chat.
New name, same ambitious women. I hope you love it and that I’ve done us justice in creating an identity that will carry us into the next expansive chapter.
These are the girls who get it, and we’re in a MOOD.
Brooke x
02 — YAPPING
A few things I need to get off my chest this month.
→ Phia, and why vibes aren’t diligence. If you missed the group chat on the day the Phia story broke, I’m sorry, because it was us at our best. I wrote the full teardown on Substack (The UX was the tell) but the short version: a celebrity cap table is a marketing asset, not a diligence process. Ice Spice, Jessica Alba and Alix Earle on the raise announcement tells you who said yes to an email. It tells you nothing about the product. Levina put it perfectly in her piece: it’s a Coachella lineup, not a board. My read: the more famous the cap table, the harder you should look at the product. Fame fills rooms. It doesn’t ship features.
→ Your side hustle is not a crime. Kristen asked the chat about side-hustle clauses in employment contracts and it turned into the best advice thread of the month. The consensus: get the clause narrowed to direct competitors only, disclose smart, and remember that any employer who wants high-performing staff cannot also expect you to have zero ambition outside your 9 to 5 (thank you Rach for saying it plainly). And if they demand full detail of your cute little side project and get weird about it? That’s not a clause problem. That’s a culture tell.
→ You are undercharging. Yes, you. Lilly asked whether $800 for a full day of UGC (8 hours, up to 12 deliverables, raw footage included) was too much after a client pushed back. The chat’s verdict was unanimous and it should be printed on a poster: that’s not expensive, that’s dirt cheap. $500 for one video is a normal market rate. Price the outcome, not the hours. And a spicy adjacent insight from Rosie: brands are quietly shifting budget from UGC creators to nano influencers because polished UGC now reads “too addy”. The so what: if content is your business, your rate card and your positioning both need a mid-year review. Do it this week.
03 — THE AI EDIT
What I’ve actually been doing with AI this month, no theory, just receipts:
→ Full disclosure, Claude helped me put this issue together. I pointed it at a month of our group chats and said “find the gold”. It found the gold. (It also once gave me an answer so enthusiastic I had to screenshot it to the chat with “why is Claude giving MLM right now ⚠️”. We’re working on its tone.)
→ How it actually got access: I connected Beeper to Claude, which gives it a native connector for WhatsApp. No more me trawling the chat at 11pm for that thing someone posted three weeks ago. Your group chats are a database. Treat them like one.
→ Free week of Claude Pro going if you want to play: Rosie shared referral links in the chat, along with LinkedIn Premium Career links that expire 31 July. Cecily also had Claude Cowork invites. Search the chat, first in best dressed.
04 — RECEIPTS
The girls have been BUSY. What actually shipped this month, and what it’s really telling us.
→ Cats out of the bag: I’m speaking at The Social Summit, Friday 18 September at Manly Pacific, Sydney, all about AI in retail. And the part I’m actually giddy about: Arielle and Jordyn are speaking too. All three of us, same stage, same day. The Social Summit is where the three of us went from knowing each other to being a trio, so walking back in as speakers together is about as full-circle as it gets. Code MOODY20 for an early bird discount until 7 August, and the first 250 registrations get VIP merch by Merch Girls. Come say hi to the tiny mic.
→ And we launched Calendar Invites. Me, Arielle and Jordyn, on the record about the highs, lows and hilarity of navigating life, careers and friendships in your 30s. It started as a group chat. It’s now a weekly show. And a strategist note on why we’re all obsessed with friend content right now: the dynamic between real friends is the one thing AI can’t replicate. You can generate a script. You can’t generate chemistry.
→ Cathy Karuga got her FIRST byline, in Who What Wear no less. The summer hats chic women are actually wearing. A US masthead on your first go. This is what happens when the girls back themselves. Go read it, then go follow @cathykaruga_.
→ Two cities. Two sold-out rooms. 50 ambitious early-stage founders. The Solo Co x Aussie Angels girl dinners ran in Sydney and Melbourne this month, co-hosted with the wonderful (and increasingly pregnant, her words) Lizzie Mulherin of The Solo Co, with special guests Anna Mackenzie in Melbourne and Rebecca Jarvie-Gibbs in Sydney being ridiculously generous with their time and expertise. Such a VIBE. What made me proudest though was Bree’s write-up after: there are plenty of events for the girls already running their empires, and almost none for the girls still figuring it out. That was this room. Both nights ended with us being kicked out because the venue was closing, which is the only event metric I trust.
→ Kayla Moran got quoted in Bloomberg Law on brands quietly using contract clauses to alter influencer content with AI. Bloomberg. Law. If you create content for brands, the “we can edit your content” clause now means something very different in 2026. Read it, then read your contracts, and follow her for the creator-side breakdown she has coming. And a personal note: I love this girl. She’s been a rock for me these past six months.
→ Perry Howell took Pilates Gang to London. Born in Bondi, built on run-club energy (inclusive, social, zero gatekeeping), and the first London event ran on the 16th. Aussie community exports are officially a category, and Perry is proof. Follow @pilatesgang_ for what’s coming up in London AND Sydney.
→ Jade launched willX: wills that evolve as your life does, real lawyers in the loop. The waitlist for the first 100 beta testers is live. Everything else in our lives got smarter. Wills finally got the memo.
→ Amelia Godfrey’s Pelvy is quietly becoming a monster: launched in December, already in 111 clinics across 6 countries with 5,000+ patients, now raising a pre-seed. Traction first, raise second. That’s the order. If you know early-stage digital health investors, she wants the intro.
→ Sam Freidin is building Wayfarer: mobility aids engineered like medtech, designed like a fashion label. Prototype in patent stage, dinner club already running. Building the community before the product ships is not a delay. It’s the moat. I got to spend proper time with Sam at Online Retailer last week and she’s amazing. If you’re in medtech or health investment, or you have contacts at major pharma, call her.
→ Bianca Le Page dropped her Q2 Australian Beauty Industry Report: a free quarterly deep dive from 13 years in beauty marketing. If you’re in beauty and you’re not reading it, your competitors are.
→ Rach Tucker’s Smooch finished its first production run. Sexy soda is real and code ANGEL gets you free shipping. I’ve already ordered.
→ Amanda launched ENESA: a pocket stylist with an actual celebrity stylist answering your styling questions within 48 hours. Access, productised. And I’ll say it plainly: I want every single piece. It’s such a good collection for the business girl.
→ Lauren Wootton launched Website Design Day: your whole site designed in a day by De Marque Studio. Tested quietly, now public, and code ANGEL10%OFF works on projects over $2k. Productising your service into a fixed-scope, fixed-price day is the smartest pricing move a studio can make. Steal the model.
→ Sumana posted on LinkedIn for the first time in a year (the Damn Gina origin story) and the chat rallied like it was a grand final. This is the energy. Visibility is a muscle, and watching the girls spot each other is my favourite thing we do.
→ And our Angel Directory keeps growing: add yourself here so the girls can find you (and so I can link you properly in this section, hint hint).
05 — CALLING ALL CITY LEADS
The city leads program is officially LAUNCHING.
Here’s the pitch. Brisbane just had the most epic dinner with 20 angels, and it happened because our Brisbane city lead Jen put her hand up and made it happen. Adelaide’s Loz did the same with a lunch recently. That’s the whole model: one girl who decides her city deserves the energy.
The shape of it: you host one meetup every 8 to 12 weeks, roughly 2 to 3 events between now and the end of the year. We bring the brand kit, the marketing, the Luma and the support. You bring the energy and the local girls. Low lift, high serendipity.
And the hands are already going up. Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and the Gold Coast are forming. Since I floated this in the chat (from a plane, chaotically), volunteers have appeared for Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Canberra, Hobart, LA, Zurich and Queenstown. Yes, Queenstown. NZ is ON. If your city isn’t on that list, that’s a gap in the market and you should take it. DM me.
Your city’s group chat is waiting for someone to be the reason it meets IRL.
06 — THE ANGELS BUSINESS BOOK CLUB
Hot new thing. Sylvie and I were scheming over a cheap wine at a corporate event (how all the best things start) and the Moody Business Book Club was born.
Book one: From The Ground Up by Bree Johnson and Jess Hatzis, the founders of Frank Body. Two Melbourne girls who turned coffee grounds into a global brand, which is exactly the energy we’re bringing to this.
First meet is Sydney in August, date landing in the chat, and we’re looking at a Zoom session so the interstate and international girls can play too. Grab the book, start reading, and come with opinions. Strong ones, loosely held.
07 — DIARY
Here’s where we’re showing up. And from this issue the guide is global, so send me what’s on in your city.
→ Tue 28 Jul — Sydney: Breathe & Expand, female founder breathwork with Tara Gallagher, Bondi, 6:30pm. Get out of the doing for one evening and expand the capacity for the vision.
→ Tue 28 Jul — Los Angeles: Women of SaaS networking, Pasadena. Cecilia’s your girl, DM her in the LA chat.
→ Wed 29 Jul — Sydney: Apex Founders coffee catch-up. RSVP via gooday.com.au.
→ Thu 30 Jul — Melbourne: Wayfarer dinner club, Sam’s dinner for people living with disability or chronic illness who cringe at the traditional support group vibe.
→ Thu 30 Jul — Sydney: Vercel Ship at The Machine Hall. Where the people building the AI-powered web show what’s next. If you’re founding, funding or marketing anything with AI in it (so, all of us), this is worth your Thursday. Request a ticket.
→ This week — New York: Co Ventures x Aussie Founders in NYC. Our first ever NYC listing, and it’s a good one: Jo Lawson is running it, and one of the founders in the room built Mimi’s, the froyo spot with Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep queuing around the block. NYC girls, go represent.
→ Fri 31 Jul — Sydney: Create Your Own Stage, 5:30pm to 9pm. Manuela’s hands-on AI + personal branding workshop for female founders with Brooke Wright. Bring your laptop; the link has 30% off baked in.
→ Sun 2 Aug — Sydney: From Burnout to Freedom, Jess’s workshop at Bondi Pavilion, 10am to 1pm. Ex corporate lawyer turned coach, and she moves to Ibiza in a fortnight, so this is your window.
→ Mon 11 Aug — Sydney: Perth angel Grace Peris is in town and keen to see the girls. Watch the chat for drinks plans.
→ Sat 15 Aug — Sydney: The Vision Reset, Becca’s breathwork at Hot Dog Yoga, Double Bay.
→ Sun 16 Aug — Blue Mountains: actually touch grass, 10am to 2pm. Georgie Healy’s guided nature walk with ConserVentures. Yes, a tech girl is making you go outside. Go.
→ Wed 19 Aug — Sydney: Canva’s AI Vision, 3pm to 8pm. Last year’s sold the room out, and marketers, founders and creative girls belong in that room as much as the engineers do. Register now.
→ Thu 20 Aug — Sydney: Trivia at Miss Double Bay, hosted by Claudia. Book here. Come for the trivia, stay for the girls.
→ Thu 20 Aug — Sydney: House Party by ON THE HOUSE GROUP, Surry Hills, 6pm to 8pm. Drinks, nibbles and a DJ for senior marketing and advertising divas. Dress code: all black. Password: housekey. (Yes, same night as trivia. It wraps at 8. Do both.)
→ Sat 22 Aug — Sydney: She is Me, Becca’s second breathwork session, IM Studios, Crows Nest.
→ Fri 18 Sep — Sydney: The Social Summit, Manly Pacific. All three of us on stage (see Receipts). Code MOODY20 until 7 Aug.
→ Oct — Melbourne: Big Beauty School: Recess, for beauty and CPG founders and operators. Waitlist open. (Foundher’s August Melbourne meetup is also open for registration.)
→ Nov — TBC: SMM Live, Taylor (She’s Making Millions) is building a women-in-business conference where the community votes on everything. Join the waitlist and have a say.
→ Ongoing — wherever you are: Caitlin’s fortnightly Meus coworking call. Why build alone when you can build together? US and Europe friendly timezones.
08 — CLASSIFIEDS
The girls are hiring, casting and asking. If one of these is you, don’t sit on it. DM the named angel unless there’s a link.
Hiring
→ Rallee has roles on across the country. Bree (Brianna Hardie) is the people-growth partner for founder-led brands, and the recruiter in your corner if you’re the one looking. On her desk right now: a national account manager for one of Australia’s fastest-growing haircare brands (Melbourne, FMCG, grocery + pharmacy experience); a mid-weight graphic designer at Bardot (Melbourne, every touchpoint from social to retail); a BD manager for a design-led retail activation agency (Sydney, genuine hunter energy, build the book from scratch); and a senior BD manager in health & wellness (Brisbane, own-the-region build-it role). Seen one that’s you? ralleepeople.com or CV to hello@ralleepeople.com.
→ RX Group is hiring a right hand to the founder/MD. Not an internship, not a grad role: a genuine right-hand seat keeping a small remote team on deadline, content on track and events running properly. 2+ years in marketing, coordination or ops, strong written comms, organised enough to follow up unasked. Part time (10 hrs/week to start, room to grow), mostly remote, ideally Auckland-based. Apply here.
→ Cecilia is leading several hiring searches for a SaaS company. All US-based, so you’ll need to be stateside. She also works with US brands looking for content creators, so if brand collaborations are your thing, that door’s open too. Connect with her on LinkedIn for either.
→ Sam Freidin (Milkshake) is after a mid-weight graphic designer and a motion designer/video editor.
→ BAYLY PR is hiring twice over in Brisbane: a talent manager and a senior account manager.
→ Sydney marketing manager role going via one of the girls’ networks.
→ Paige is hiring a founding software engineer. She’s building an AI-powered comms platform for Australian PR practitioners, and it’s the real thing: multi-agent architecture, category expertise baked into the prompts, expert review workflow built in. Bootstrap-funded and validating the prototype with senior PR professionals right now. She wants someone who’s shipped production LLM applications, not wrappers around APIs: 5+ years engineering, hands-on Claude or GPT in production, prompt engineering as a first-class discipline, retrieval, cost and latency instincts, and enough product sense to push back when a technical call doesn’t serve the user. Based anywhere, AU timezone overlap preferred. Founding seats on products this considered don’t come up often. Email Paige at Paige.milton92@gmail.com.
Paid ops
→ Fashion creators: Holly is casting a paid reel for Our Place’s window launch at David Jones Sydney. Bold and theatrical. DM her.
Offers
→ Sarah Macdonald is giving away 5x 20% Squarespace discounts. Building or refreshing a site this quarter? There are five, and they will go. DM her.
Asks
→ Clarissa needs a freelance web designer/developer for a simple brochure site, budget $3-5k.
→ Sarah Hall (Cymbal) is filling her black book of AU/NZ photographers, videographers and lo-fi content creators ahead of Christmas and BFCM. Get in it.
→ Layla is taking Dr Diamond GLOBAL. She’s heading to the US to make it happen, and she’s building her contact list now. If you have US contacts in her world, DM her. This is exactly what the network is for.
09 — JOIN THE CHAT
Forward this to one girl in your network who’d get it. Then add her:
→ LA chat
→ NYC chat
We’re taking over. In multiple time zones now.
Love Brooke x
This is so good!! Stoked to be part of it now x
Thank you for the shoutout. So excited for this new era LFG 🐐